Control and optimization of complex systems is a frequently encountered contemporary technical problem. For example, in a European Patent Office appeal decision T26/86 relating to a European patent application EP78101198, an invention pertaining to a control computer coupled to a known type of X-ray tube for controlling operating parameters of the X-ray tube is described. The invention concerns a control computer configured to execute software for rendering the computer operable to control the X-ray tube for achieving an optimum exposure whilst providing adequate protection against overloading the X-ray tube. In the aforesaid decision T26/86, the European Patent Office deemed subject matter claimed in claims of the patent application EP78101198 to be potentially patentable in view of the subject matter being directed towards solving a technical problem and not relating solely to software as such.
Moreover, in a European Patent Office appeal decision T6/83 relating to a European patent application no. EP79101907, another invention is described concerning co-ordination and control of internal communication between programs and data files held at different processors in a data processing system having a plurality of interconnected data processors in a telecommunication network. The invention is not concerned with the nature of data communicated within the data processing system, but rather with coordination of internal basic functions of the data processing system for permitting a plurality of software programs for specific applications to be executed. The invention was deemed by the European Patent Office to be solving a problem which was essentially technical in nature, thereby rendering the claimed invention patentable.
From the foregoing, a principle has evolved that software executable on computing hardware for solving a problem having a technical nature is considered to relate to potentially patentable subject matter.
Software products executable on computing hardware for controlling logistics within complex systems are generally known. Such logistics software products are used, for example, to control movements of containers on maritime cargo ships between various seaports. Alternatively, such software products can be used to control movements of vehicles distributing goods over a geographical area, wherein operational problems can arise such as breakdown of the vehicles, traffic accidents delaying movements of the vehicles, adverse weather conditions and so forth. The software products are capable of dynamically adapting to problematic situations arising in systems for which they are configured to control and manage.
A problem arises when proprietary software products have been incrementally brought into use to monitor and control extremely complex systems. For example, an oil and/or gas field indicated generally by 10 in FIG. 1 comprises many thousands of oil and/or gas wells from which oil and/or gas is substantially continuously extracted; an example oil and/or gas well is denoted by 20. For example, the oil field 10 includes in an order of eleven thousand oil and/or gas wells. Oil and/or gas extraction and handling equipment 30 associated with each of the oil and/or gas wells 20 is prone to exhibiting imperfect reliability, namely occasionally subject to breakdowns and thereby requiring maintenance. Moreover, physical conditions such as well-pressure can be dynamically varying in each of the oil and/or gas wells 20, thereby affecting a yield of oil and/or gas obtainable therefrom. A control centre 50 including computing hardware 60 operable to execute software products is coupled in communication with arrays of sensors 40 included in the extraction and handling equipment 30 of the wells 20 of the oil and/or gas field 10. The control centre 50 is operated by a group of personnel denoted by 70, the group 70 employing the computing hardware 60 to monitor and manage operation of the oil and/or gas wells 20 by way of signals supplied from the arrays of sensors 40 to the computing hardware 60.
The computing hardware 60 itself is illustrated schematically in FIG. 2. The computing hardware 60 comprises, for example, data memory 90 for storing a plurality of databases 100 and computers 110 with one or more associated display monitors 120. The one or more display monitors 120 are spatially disposed to be viewed by the group of personnel 70. The computers 110 are operable to receive the aforesaid signals and store data derived therefrom in the databases 100. Moreover, the computers 110 are operable, under control of the aforementioned software products, to selectively extract data from the databases 110 and/or the aforesaid signals from the arrays of sensors 40 for visually presenting various categories of information to the group of personnel 70.
A technical problem which is encountered in practice in the control centre 50 is that the group of personnel 70 are often overwhelmed by an huge volume of data from the arrays of sensors 40 such that it is difficult for the group of personnel 70 to derive a clear overall indication of functioning of the oil and/or gas field 10 quickly for making decisions. For example, data stored in the databases 100 is often not cross-related on account of an incremental manner in which the software products executing on the computing hardware 60 have been brought into operation during development of the oil and/or gas field 10. Moreover, a further problem arises in that the software products are often from more than one vendor and are thereby not designed to mutually interoperate.
A further issue is that the group of personnel 70 are subject to human characteristics such as impatience and limited concentration time span which renders it difficult for them to handle a vast amount of information being presented to them by the computing hardware 60. The group of personnel 70 can optionally simply chose to ignore certain information presented to them but then risk overlooking important issues which prevent the oil and/or gas field 10 from being operated in an efficient manner, for example the group of personnel 70 miss an opportunity to extract greater quantities of oil from certain oil and/or gas wells 20 exhibiting unusually high well pressures by ignoring pressure measurement data pertaining to the certain oil and/or gas wells 20.
Thus, a conventional approach to addressing the technical problem as described in the foregoing is to execute several contemporary proprietary software products on the computing hardware 60 to process measurement data derived from the oil and/or gas field 10 to generate several diverse sets of processed measurement output data, and to rely on the group of personnel 70 to manually correlate the sets of output data to extract pertinent information therefrom for managing operation of the oil and/or gas field 10.
Although the technical problem addressed by the present invention has been elucidated in the foregoing, for example in relation to the oil and/or gas field 10, it will be appreciated that similar technical problems arise when controlling other types of complex systems, for example control systems including one or more of solar cell arrays, wind farms comprising arrays of wind turbines, arrays of coastal wave energy collectors, arrays of geothermal bore holes and so forth.